The guys at Andertons Music in the U.K. recently checked out a few of the new Charvel Pro-Mod series of guitars, featuring both the So-Cal and San Dimas models.

And, the review of these hot-rodded axes would not be complete without some input from hair-metal “legends” Richie Sambuka and Wilder “The Beastmaster” Beast, who get a call in the second half of the video to teach the audience how to really rock.

In a recent interview with Premier Guitar, guitarist Guthrie Govan and bassist Bryan Beller of the Aristocrats talked about their latest album Culture Clash, their influences and the face-melting solos that manage to shine through both on the record and live.

Govan also discussed the prototype guitars that he is working with Charvel to perfect.

The English axeman noted that he is currently playing prototype No. 3 on the Aristocrats’ current tour.

“These guys really care when I give them suggestions and are on the case immediately. So they turned up at the gig yesterday with prototype #3. Different bridge—that’s all I’m saying,” he explained.

One of the main sticking points for Govan is the bridge, but he believes No. 3 might just be the charm.

“One of the things that has worried me for years is I don’t like the full-on, double-locking trem and all the ungodly metal work that tends to come along with that design,” he said. ”It gets in the way of your picking hand and then there’s the tedious locking nut and not being able to change the tuning in the middle of a gig. Life’s too short for double-locking trems, in my opinion. I’ve always tried to make a vintage-style trem stay in tune and I’ve never quite succeeded. When I was trying to relearn the songs for this current tour, I listened back to a couple of moments from our live DVD [Boing, We'll Do It Live!] and thought, ‘Really? That was in tune two minutes ago, what happened?’ But with this model, I think we have cracked it. Sorry to taunt your readers, but I think we cracked it … you’ll see!”

Govan also would not divulge much information when asked about the potential of a Charvel signature model.

“We’re working on it. It will probably happen fairly soon. I don’t want to promise anything, but I know how excited the Internet gets about these things,” he said. ”If I put two Facebook posts out and one is about a new album and the one is about a signature guitar, the guitar one will distract everyone from the album. It’s weird to me, but that’s how things seem to work. I guess people need to know something. With that in mind, we’re working together and have one very nearly dialed in that is very close to deserving the title of a signature model. Other than that, I cannot and will not say — but something will happen in the foreseeable future.”

Andreas Kisser is widely known as the ace shredder for Brazilian metal stalwarts Sepultura, and that band has an album coming out on Oct. 25.

But in the past year, Kisser has been working with another band, the all-star lineup of De La Tierra.

Made up of Álex González (Maná), Flavio Cianciarulo (Los Fabulosos Cadillacs) and Andrés Giménez (D-mente, A.N.I.M.A.L.), De La Tierra has paired with Stanley Soares, a longtime Sepultura collaborator, to produce music that is definitely heavy.

This is no supergroup, however. Kisser notes that the collaboration came together organically with a notion to continue as a group beyond their debut album.

Charvel.com recently caught up with Kisser to get the inside scoop on De La Tierra.

Charvel.com: How did De La Tierra originally come about?

Kisser: It’s amazing. I’m so glad that I received the invitation from these guys. It started with Álex González, who is the drummer from Maná, and Andrés Giménez from Argentina. Álex is a metalhead. Even when he plays with Maná, you see the skulls on his drum set. He wants to show that he has some metal blood. He and Andres were talking about this project for like eight years. It was always, “Come on, let’s do this.” And finally, they said, “Let’s make it happen.” That was last year, and Álex called me about this heavy project. He said we wanted to sing in Spanish, and I said, “F**k, that’s great!” With me here, we could put some Portuguese on there, as well. (more…)

Guitarists Matt Marshall and Xavier Adames of New Jersey-based post-hardcore band Palisades have officially joined the Charvel family.

The sextet teamed up with producer Cameron Mizell at Chango Studios (Sleeping With Sirens, Memphis May Fire, Woe Is Me) to recently release the full-length album Outcasts, on which Andy Leo from Crown The Empire, Chris Roetter from Like Moths To Flames and Tyler Carter of Issues contributed guest vocals.

Palisades currently has a few U.S. tour dates scheduled for this summer before heading to Europe with Silverstein and Dream on Dreamer.

Armed with the strength of their new album “Outcasts”, PALISADES will be unstoppable by this summer.